Victims' families welcome CTV report

Families of Canterbury Television building collapse victims
have welcomed the findings of a royal commission into the
building's collapse.

The findings will be released publicly later today but the
families of all 115 victims were given copies of the report
over the weekend.

They also met Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson and
Minister for Building and Construction Maurice Williamson in
Christchurch yesterday to go through the Canterbury
Earthquakes Royal Commission report into the February 22
disaster.

The report, to be publicly released at 3pm, comes after the
intensive eight-week hearing which heard testimony from more
than 80 witnesses, including collapse survivors,
eyewitnesses, building designers, architects, engineers,
builders, and inspectors.

During the hearings, concerns were raised over the 1986
design of the concrete Madras St structure, as well as issues
over its construction, failure to meet building code
standards of the day, a 1991 retrofit to strengthen
identified weaknesses, and how it became green-stickered
after the September 4, 2010 shake.

Quake Families spokesman Brian Kennedy, whose wife Faye died
in the six-storey office block collapse, was pleased with the
comments made by ministers Mr Finlayson and Mr Williamson
yesterday, especially a Government commitment to meet
families in future to give them a "progress report" on
implementing the recommendations.

He received a copy of the report on Saturday and was happy
with what he read.

"I went straight the recommendations and they are pretty much
what I expected," he said.

"All the obvious things have been pointed out and I feel
quite content now."